Elastomeric materials have been used in the past in countless different applications. For instance, waist bands, leg bands, feminine care products, adult care products, and diapers employ elastic components in order to supply such articles with elastic properties and a better fit. In many applications, elastic materials are bonded to one or more other layers in order to form laminated structures in these and other applications.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,802 to Morman, a process for producing a composite nonwoven elastic web including a nonwoven elastic web joined to a fibrous nonwoven gathered web is disclosed. The process includes the steps of (a) providing a nonwoven elastic web having a relaxed unbiased length and a stretched, biased length; (b) stretching the nonwoven elastic web to its stretched, biased length; (c) forming a fibrous nonwoven gatherable web directly upon a surface of the nonwoven elastic web while maintaining the nonwoven elastic web at its stretched, biased length; (d) forming a composite nonwoven elastic web by joining the fibrous nonwoven gatherable web to the nonwoven elastic web while continuing to maintain the nonwoven elastic web at its stretched length; and (e) relaxing the nonwoven elastic web to its relaxed length to gather the fibrous nonwoven gatherable web. The joining of the fibrous nonwoven gatherable web to the nonwoven web is achieved by heat-bonding or sonic bonding to fuse the two webs to each other.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,415 to Vander Wielen, et al., a method of producing a composite elastic material is disclosed which comprises stretching an elastic web to elongate it, for example elongating a nonwoven web of meltblown elastomeric fibers, and bonding the elongated web to at least one gatherable web, such as a spunbonded polyester fiber material, under conditions which soften at least a portion of the elastic web to form the bonded composite web of elastic material.
The above-described patents represent great advancements in the art. The present invention is directed to further improvements in elastic materials which display good elastic characteristics at low basis weights and laminated elastic formations which display good compatibility between layers and excellent bonding while decreasing production costs and simplifying production of the personal care products formed from the materials.